Claire Trevett: PM Jacinda Ardern may regret writing off the Tauranga byelection as a lost cause – New Zealand Herald

Labour's Tinetti is vying for the Tauranga seat.

OPINION:

It pays not to over-interpret byelection results, but when it comes to the Tauranga byelection both National and Labour should bear something in mind.

Labour should not too easily dismiss the result as a foregone conclusion and National should not get too cocky about its convincing victory.

Labour's caution should be in case Tauranga proves to be something of a bellwether result at least for other provincial seats.

All Labour's candidate Jan Tinetti could muster by way of solace after getting about 25 per cent of the byelection votes was to say she had done no worse than in 2017. In 2017, Tinetti was a first-time candidate and Labour was rising from a dismal poll base.

If the byelection result is mirrored in the general election result, then Labour has lost all of the advantage it got in the 2020 election and in the Tauranga byelection it seemed happy to let it go without even a fight.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern should perhaps be ruing her decision not to make just a little bit more effort in the Tauranga byelection and writing it off as a lost cause so thoroughly from the very beginning.

National was always going to win, the PM was right in that. But not putting in at least a token effort to get the Labour vote out and try to hold on to some of the 2020 vote in that byelection may have been a mistake, with a general election little more than a year away.

Ardern did not visit the campaign at all, partly by circumstance but also by design: she was out of action with Covid-19 and then on the US and Australia trips.

She had a visit scheduled in the last week but was sick that day. On byelection day she was in Queenstown.

The by design element was so she was not associated with a stonking loss - and to try to starve it of attention.

In a bid to distance herself from the loss, Ardern had written off Labour's chances from day one - not just downplayed them but written them off completely.

It left Jan Tinetti fighting alone. It also sent an appalling message to the people of Tauranga - and by extension the people of other provinces. To Labour voters it sent the message not to bother voting. To the rest it sent the message that Labour had given up holding on to its 2020 haul.

In 2020 Labour came close to taking the Tauranga seat Simon Bridges' majority shrank to 1800 votes and Labour beat National in the party vote.

It did take a number of other supposedly safe National provincial seats.

At the time the PM acknowledged many of those voters may not have normally voted for Labour - and pledged to govern for all of them. Success in 2023 will depend on Labour at least holding some of them.

The Tauranga byelection would have been a way of trying to hold up that vote.

As it was, Act put up more of a fight in Tauranga than Labour did and it had even less chance of winning.

The reason Act leader David Seymour went there time and again was to take out insurance for 2023 when the same voters will also be casting party votes.

Show the voters you're there and listening through the term and it just might help in 2023. Act's candidate Cameron Luxton pulled in 10 per cent of the vote, higher than in 2017 or 2020, despite National's vote also rising.

As for National, the votes for Sam Uffindell were as much votes for leader Christopher Luxon and renewed hope in the party among its base as for Uffindell himself. Luxon needed a good win there by way of concrete evidence that the party was back.

However, National should not get too cocky because there is little doubt Uffindell's result was inflated by a low turnout on the left.

The Green Party did not stand a candidate at all. Labour barely raised a finger to campaign. Once Ardern had declared the contest over before it began, its voters had very little incentive to go out and tick a box.

The 2015 Northland byelection showed National the perils of taking a win in a seat for granted.

Then prime minister John Key announced that NZ First's Winston Peters did not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning it. Northland may well be the winterless North, but it was clearly a bitterly cold day in hell and Peters won.

Tauranga could well be a lesson to Labour that it also pays not to look as if you are taking a loss in a seat for granted.

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Claire Trevett: PM Jacinda Ardern may regret writing off the Tauranga byelection as a lost cause - New Zealand Herald